


I'll Be Good

by Out_Of_Custody



Series: 00Magic [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, James Bond (Craig movies), James Bond (Movies), James Bond - Fandom
Genre: 00Magic, Background on Bond, Dark!Hermione, Fighting, Gen, Hermione being nosy, Hermione doesn't sleep, Mentioned deaths, Muggle/Wizard Relations, after his father, brightest witch of her age, electricity works, even around wizards, fight me on this, his middle name is Andrew, i dare you, muggle-wizard-collaboration, rarepair, slight angst shmoop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-16
Updated: 2016-08-16
Packaged: 2018-08-09 04:11:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7786279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Out_Of_Custody/pseuds/Out_Of_Custody
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hermione comes to M with a proposal</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from I'll be good - Jaymes Young  
> No particular connection, I just listened to the song while writing this and was wanting for a title so there - laziness at its best

There was something _off_ about the woman in front of him.

Despite the fact that he could appreciate her bespoke suit – it had to be for it to fit so marvellously to her silhouette – and would certainly never go as far as to consider her unfit for her duty, he was somewhat… thrown by the owl perched on the backrest of her chair; yellow eyes boring into the dimness of the room. 

“Sir?”

His eyes flew back up to hers from where they’d slid to the table-top in contemplation and he found himself floundering for an immediate answer. There was no doubt in him that he wanted to at least verify if her credentials were indeed warranted (and if so then he direly wanted her in his ranks) for she looked the part at least, and he had recently grown accustomed to younger recruits yielding spectacular results. Not only that but if what she was saying was true… they could _need_ somebody like her.

“You will pardon me if my head needs a few minutes to wrap itself around your news, Madam-“

“Ms”—she interrupted him, silently, calmly.

“Ms Granger.”—he conceded.

The woman nodded once and reached forward for her cup of tea, taking a generous sip before she spoke again.

“If it will make you feel better I have been given permission for one demonstration – it might serve to clear up any questions that might still… hold you back.”

He leaned forwards. “You are interested in a collaboration then?”

“Personally? Very.”—she admitted, putting her cup down on the platter with barely a _clink_ to show for it. “Understand that even in our community provenance can vary and there have been known to be people without any magical ancestors at all to develop such a gift at tender ages. I have grown up in two worlds during my formative years and for quite some time now it has been a dream of mine to bridge them. I do think that this would be the perfect opportunity to accomplish just that.”

While he’d profiled her provenance by her speech relatively early on, he was thrown, again, by how polished her talk was – compared to what he'd gathered about her birthdate and the often appalling vernacular of her peers. But then, again: he should have gotten used to such maturity from singular individuals of her age already, given that one of his own was not very much older than she was.

“Would you walk me through the procedure again, should I agree to this?”

Ms Granger leaned forward, dainty fingers gently carding over the small group of papers in front of her before she found what she’d sought and moved it to the top.

“Basically, by signing this, you agree to accept me as a Junior Agent, you agree to train me and to subject me to the Laws of The Queen. You agree to find a suitable mentor and, when the time has come, to send me on missions for The Crown. In return I will function doubly as an Agent as well as an Informant – on behalf of my people as well as yours, given that, by then, I shall be living under the Laws of The Queen. Nevertheless you also agree to ensuring that no unnecessary harm shall befall me, especially in the form of medical examinations.” –she paused. “I would advise you to read through it carefully once more in case I forgot to mention anything.”

There was something in her words that propelled him into nodding, reaching for the document himself.

“Before I do so… would you mind performing that demonstration you had been talking about?”

“Certainly.”

 

***

 

“She’s bloody tiny.”—he observed a little snidely, eyes cutting to the side where his colleague stood, tapping away on one of his tablets. He barely lifted his eyes to take in the woman in the training room before they returned to what was happening on the screen.

“While I would like to inform you that height has nothing to do with capability…”—he hesitated, looked up again, longer this time, “-I do have to concede that she _is_ rather small, and her waist circumference almost beats mine.”

He turned his attention back to the person in the room, lips pursed as he mulled over the new arrival. In the field it was likely that he’d have disregarded her as unthreatening or, should he have encountered her in combat, considered her an anomaly. And it was still possible that she was such an anomaly; but then the Service had only rarely had the fortune of recruiting such individuals, the only true exception currently standing next to him, fingers flying over the display of a Tablet.

Their superior appeared at their sides, suit pressed and perfect as always – a small dossier in his hands; her contract presumably.

“I have it on good authority that you are ready for the field.”—he greeted them and his colleague stepped out of their line of conversation, retreating to lean his back against the opposite wall of the narrow hall. Not her contract then.

He nodded once in greeting, a small smile playing at his lips as he nodded towards the file that, indeed, identified as his medical record. “I have it on good authority that this time it is a genuine report on my health.”—he retorted, relishing in the moue of exasperation on his employer’s face.

Their heads turned towards the training room then, his colleague taking up his position next to them again – the tablet-screen displaying the video feed of the cameras hidden in the room. He counted a few too many for his taste, but didn’t comment on it.

“I do hope that you are ready to inaugurate what is possibly our newest member then.”—the other man sighed, giving him a look as he turned his head. “Do not, under any circumstances, go easy on her, or so help me God you are not going to Egypt next week and sitting a Junior Agent instead.”

Never having had a Newbie and rather liking the freedom that came with it on the more engaging missions reserved for such agents sans mentorship he pulled a small moue himself, but nodded and stalked off to the entrance of the training room.

 

***

 

His peers were clogging up the door, but as he approached they parted as if he were one of the Morituri entering the oval of the Colosseum.

Truth be told she was even tinier up close.

“Begin.”


	2. Man Without Fear

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title taken from: Man Without Fear by Shockstix & iClown

She had been given two parameters:

  * Draw first blood
  * Don’t let your opponent know what you are capable of doing



They weren’t, per se, unusual target-objectives, despite the fact that she had wondered a little about the cavalier attitude concerning the health of an employed agent. Seeing her opponent now, though, as he stepped through the door, she could tell that the man would not stop until then.

He was of a stocky build, wiry muscles shaping his physique and while he was by half a head shorter than most of the men she could see milling outside of the neon-lit room, he still towered over her by the breadth of two hands. His dirty-blonde hair shimmered white in the harsh illumination and his skin looked dry from where she stood, motionless, seizing him up with the same critical stare that he had turned on her.

It did not pass her notice that he straightened his spine, making himself even taller the moment he had stepped in, making it known to her that he was _a larger presence_ and she checked a mental box, remaining as still as possible while she continued to muster him.

Steely blue eyes swept over her, trying to catalogue her – if Moody’s training had paid off at all there would be nothing to find for him. On the other hand she herself kept her eyes on his moving figure as he closed in on her in the middle of the room.

If she wanted to have a good shot at fighting him she needed to either bring him down to her height, lower preferably,  and she would need forgo pulling her punches – this was a battle-hardened man she had in front of her, probably Ex-Military which said a lot about a person. She imagined there were very few of them indeed that would leave the Military to become a part of a Secret Service – it was the trenches 24/7.

He reached her, offering his hand. “Bond.”

The witch grasped the appendage, squeezing it softer than she would have under normal circumstances and smiled insipidly, hoping to play into an idea he might already have formed about her.

“Granger.”—she answered, letting her hand drop in a calculated slop to her side. “So you’re the one I’m pitched against.”

A small smile spread over his features and she was not certain if it was an entirely friendly thing – probably not – as he turned a little way to take up position opposite of her, easily falling into a fighting stance.

For a moment he looked as if he wanted to say something, but he let it go and instead his face emptied itself until it was familiarly blank – Hermione could feel her own face mimicking the gesture.

“Begin.”

Bond did not hesitate and lunged forth in a calculated one-foot lurch, accompanied by a swinging fist – his stronger arm she supposed as she stepped out of the range with a minute movement of her feet and hips before she lengthened her stride along the outer line of his stretched limb.

She was about to grip at his neck but the man had divined her intention and ducked momentarily, making her miss the opportunity. Curling in towards himself he lowered to the knee of the foot he’d lengthened before, hurtling another fist towards her stomach.

Hermione jumped, evading the fist and, in the same movement, extending her own stronger leg to hail an attack on his head – he reacted before he completely understood, his lower arm blocking the hit that would have drawn first blood and instead used her fractioned moment of instability as she landed to swing his heretofore lowered foot under her supporting leg.

Anticipating the fall, she curled to a ball and softened the blow of the mattress by rolling backwards.

But he’d stood by then, not underneath attacking her face with vicious kicks of his trained legs as she uncurled from the backwards roll – instinctually she shielded her head with her lower arms, taking blows as her legs automatically straightened underneath her to regain a standing position.

Within a breath she was at him, abusing her smaller stature to land a solid blow in his stomach with her elbow and watching him predictably contract his muscles to absorb it – he was expecting her to hit again – but she danced out of the reach of his strong arms.

Feigning a punch to his liver, Hermione ducked the resulting elbow that rowed backwards and towards her temple with frightening strength and speed. But Bond turned with his punch and Hermione, never once to pass an opportunity, now stood right in front of him.

Bond noticed his error too late but even as she landed her neat upper-cut did she not draw first blood.

Her opponent stumbled backwards, rubbing almost appreciatively on the spot that by tomorrow would probably be sore – there were several points on her own body that she didn’t doubt would be bruised later this day.

Wordlessly she charged, jumping skywards to jab three well aimed kicks at his face, all deflected, before he grabbed her ankle, pulling her downwards – she could feel the fist coming before she saw it and realized, in the fraction of a second, that he would draw first blood if he landed the hit, and he undoubtedly would.

In a last effort, she steeled her elbow and stubbornly brought it down on his nose and eye just as his knuckles connected with her skin.

 

***

 

Blood.

Eve, standing between him and Q, observed with them as the two combatants stumbled apart; both of them wiping at the Red spilling from their faces and onto the dark-blue mats under their feet – the stationary medic was getting twitchy on the side-lines, no doubt categorizing the various injuries and mentally adding them up.

He was pleased to see that, at the least, Bond had not been going on easy on the young woman – nevertheless he assumed that the two of them would probably be best matched. If not for the way they obviously caught on to each other’s strategy then because he could rely on 007 as his sole Senior Agent still in the field to roll with the punches – be they literal or figurative – and he didn’t doubt that there would be a lot of them where Ms Granger was concerned.

The young woman offered her hand.

“I was told to draw first blood.”—she acquiesced and Bond, taking the proffered hand, nodded.

“Congratulations.”—he solemnly answered, still dabbing at his bleeding nose – Ms Granger was inconspicuously wiping at the corner of her mouth.

M nodded at the medic.  
He didn’t think he’d ever seen her so relieved to close in on 007 and tend to his boo-boos.

The woman went for Ms Granger first.

 


	3. Ghosst(s)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ghosst(s) by Lorn

Packing her things had, before all her adventures with the boys, always been an ordeal, she remembered fondly as she stood in the dusty halls of Grimmauld-Place now, watching lint float through the occasional ray of sun.

When she’d started out at Hogwarts, she’d seen a bright future before her innocent, enthusiastic eyes. She’d imagined herself as a Pioneer in Potions – a dream squashed by the impossibility that was Severus Snape – or as a reformer of laws. But none of that had happened.

Instead she’d gone off to war at sixteen, killed first with eighteen and had, since, not been the same.

Taking her first life had meant forfeiting her Unicorn-Hair Wand for the core would but work for those innocent of heart and while she’d often heard it, she’d never before witnessed, experienced personally, innocence being the first casualty in war.

Bellatrix’ Wand had done her sinister services – especially during that First, most bloody, Battle of Hogwarts in 1998 those few years ago when they’d thought everything was over.

She’d lost Harry since then.  
She’d lost Ron since then.  
She’d lost a whole lot of Weasleys come to think of it – more than she could stomach.

And when she’d been done fighting her ways through the indoctrination of Voldemort, when she’d had blood of members of near-to every pure-blooded family on her hands, the Light had finally prevailed. Years after the promise to do so had been made.

There were gruesome deaths on her ledger, abominable passings that she had facilitated, clinging to the loathsome moniker of the late Albus Dumbledore – it being all she’d had left.

For The Greater Good

-she’d told herself while she slit the throat of Runja Rowle  
-she’d cried when she plunged the sword of Gryffindor into Evan Rosier’s chest  
-she’d whispered as she’d watched Lucius and Narcissa gargle to death on the poison she’d slipped them…

She had these words glued to her lips, clotting up her airways. _Ad maius bonum_ – she even had it put under her skin. Never to forget.

 

**

 

Being a likely prospect for her mentorship, Hermione took a day to weasel out as much intel as she possibly, legally, could on the man she'd fought the day before. Her body would have born memorable impressions of their meeting if it wouldn't have been for the healing-properties of certain potions. But that day she didn't do a lot of heavy lifting either way.

As it was she was rather certain that the Quartermaster she’d only seen in passing had a Hawk’s Eye on the personal information of his Agents – she didn’t doubt, not for a second, his possessive-protective streak – and had opted to go about her information-hunt the old-fashioned way.

In the recent years Hermione had decided to go to the bottom of why wizards had not yet entered the ages of information-technology which was generally attested to the interference that magic was known to cause with electricity.

And while Hermione herself had caused several power-outages as a child in a fit of anger, such a thing had never once occurred once she’d learned how to get a hold of the power within her. Thus she’d made to explore whether her magic would generally interfere with electronic appliances or if it would only do so if she would leave it unchecked.

It turned out many witches and wizards, especially those born with their enhancing qualities, were ignorant about the machinations of controlling one’s energy and, also, severely uninterested in that regard. Controlled magic, masked in the best circumstances, would do nothing to interfere with electronic appliances. Once she’d realized this, Hermione had set out to explore the world via the scenic, world-wide-web, route and had not once needed to go back on her decision.

This time though she chose the Olde Way knowingly and, had looked for Bond families all over Britain.

There existed, of course, the likelihood that the man had changed his name, or had given her a false one or that he wasn’t even from the United Kingdom, but she needed to start somewhere – and the power of elimination, too, wasn’t without its charms.

However, barely half a day into her research, she found young James Andrew Bond staring at her from the copy of an old Town's Newspaper from somewhere in Scotland. The article itself spoke of the horrendous death of the parents of young James Bond leaving the boy to inherit the vast expense of _Skyfall_.

Looking the estate up was easier than she thought and she soon found herself happily ensconced in family trees and History Of The Land tomes that were thicker than the ever extending Registry at the library at Hogwarts.

Needless to say Hermione Granger was fully in her element – she cleared away most of her reading material within that very same day and chose the remaining assortment To Go.

0148 saw her with the following conclusions on the life of her more-than-likely-soon-mentor:

  * James Bond was the son to Andrew Bond and Monique Delacroix
  * The Bonds had a long-standing family-history bound to Doster and are known to have been Recusants
  * The humble family motto – Hermione could barely believe something like this still even existed in the muggle world – was _Non sufficit orbis_ ; which she could believe the older man to live by, vigorously
  * He’d been raised in the Scottish estate of Skyfall to take it over
  * But had been forced to leave it for a strict, catholic orphanage after the death of his parents
  * Ensuing in a rebellion that would not stop until his drafting
  * Upon which he did astoundingly well in the Military
  * Only to completely vanish from the plan after his commendation to Commander of the Royal Naval Reserve



 Her phone beeped.

"Granger.”

“Ms Granger.”—the dulcet tones of the Head of Secret Service immediately had her sit straighter in her bed where she’d been bent over her list of results from her day-long hunt.

“Sir.”—she greeted quietly.

“I see you honour the same sleeping rotation as many other of our Agents. I believe you will fit right in.”

“Sir.”—she smiled a little, catching his meaning between the lines. “It’s an honour, sir.”

“Please,”—he said softly, “you may call me M.”

**Author's Note:**

> I've just recently written a list of all the rarepairs I want to write stories on and I hope that my discipline won't fail me on this - I think Bond/Granger is an interesting combination though and I have Plans (note the capital P) for them :)


End file.
